


Nice Reflexes [Trying to Cover]

by seularen



Category: Hannibal (TV), Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Fuller would be proud, M/M, Multi, Psychosexual Horror, Spoilers for Red Dragon, Wincest - Freeform, doing what I want with Hannibal's timeline
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-20
Updated: 2013-09-20
Packaged: 2017-12-27 03:26:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/973745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seularen/pseuds/seularen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But the core idea lingers: It's not too late to set herself apart. </p><p>(Post-s3: Dean goes to Hell. Sam is on his own—sort of. // Post-Red Dragon: Abigail flees before the trial. All roads converge, and good intentions always lead back to motel beds.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nice Reflexes [Trying to Cover]

**Author's Note:**

> Dean: Nice reflexes.  
> Sam: I knew it was going happen, Dean. I know everything that's going to happen.  
> Dean: You don't know _every_ thing.  
> Sam: Yeah, I do.   
> —3x11, Mystery Spot
> 
> Sam: We've seen that wreath before, Dean.  
> Dean: Where?  
> Sam: The Walshes. Yesterday.  
> Dean: _[trying to cover]_ ...I know... I was just testing you.   
>  —3x8, A Very Supernatural Christmas

 

 

> [**oo1**](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvQr2kSu-5c) i'm not gonna look down, and i'm not gonna look back. don’t leave a key underneath the mat for me, ‘cuz I won’t be coming back around here.  
> 
> 
> ( **goodbye** _the postmarks_ )  
>   
> ---  
  
  
  
They catch the Chesapeake Ripper. At least, that’s what Jack Crawford wants everyone to think. Abigail and Will—they know the truth. When Will had confronted him, Hannibal caressed Will’s organs with that knife; Will had felt it slide in like a kiss. After living inside the Ripper’s head so long, Will had been terrified when he’d looked up and _seen_.  
  
Abigail can hear Will’s distress when she visits him at the hospital (Alana drives her, stays outside); she knows how he feels. It’s confusing, when you don’t die and it feels like _you_ did something wrong. It’s twisted—but Will is the reason Hannibal lingered, just like Abigail was the reason her dad didn’t flee. You always kill the thing you love.  
  
She doesn’t want to feel sympathy for Will Graham, so she folds her arms across her chest.  
  
There’s going to be a trial, Will tells her. Are they going to make me testify? Will frowns: you don’t have to if you don’t want to, Abigail. Her shoulders slump as he searches her face, a flower curling _away_ from the sun. She doesn’t want his promises. It’s not cameras or a judge she’s afraid of. He should know that. He should know he can't promise safety, not when he doesn't even know what he'd do if he saw Hannibal again. None of them do. That's the problem.  
  
With every step she takes away from his room, an idea—fragile and rebellious—grows beneath her ribs. Without Hannibal’s warm hands and watchful gaze, Abigail feels her fear turn brittle and cold. She wants to see if it will shatter.  
  
Alana has rolled down the windows while she’s been gone; Abigail slides into the passenger’s seat as Alana wipes at her eyes. The words stick in Abigail's throat, right where the scar sits. She takes a slow breath of foggy air and swallows down the bile and bones of the last two years to utter the first words of her new life:  
  
“Help me disappear.”  


 

 

 

 

> [**oo2**](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGzSFnLM4xA) hearing only one root note planted firmly in the ground  
>  undo my heart, unzip my body, and lend to my ear a clear and a deafening sound.  
>   
>  and if I need a rhythm, it’ll be to my heart I listen  
>  if it don’t put me too far wrong.  
> 
> 
> ( **ramalama (bang bang)** _roisin murphy_ )  
>   
> ---  
  
  
  
She wields freedom like a long piece of jagged glass: she doesn’t care if it cuts into her palm from gripping it too tight. She _doesn’t care_.  
  
For a week, early on, she flirts with the idea that she could be a vegetarian. The change would feel more permanent than her cheap haircut, more deliberate than her zig-zag travel towards flat sandy landscapes (not a forest in sight). Abigail isn’t immune to the seductive aspect of a statement. A refusal. A transformation?  
  
Then she’s in a diner, stomach growling because she’s trying to make her money last and one fast food salad a day is a whiplash reversal from Hannibal’s table. The diner is attached to a gas station; only truckers eat here. Truckers and Abigail Hobbs. A waitress passes her table with a plated steak. Abigail watches as the plate wobbles: a drop of bloody juice slides over the side and plops onto the tile floor, splattering. Abigail swallows the saliva pooling in her cheeks.  
  
Vegetarianism’s out.  
  
But the core idea lingers: It’s not too late to set herself apart.  


 

 

 

 

> [**oo3**](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwWHN1NZaME) you know there was death in Tallulah;  
>  don’t turn your eyes away.  
> 
> 
> ( **tallulah** _company of thieves_ )  
>   
> ---  
  
  
  
Sam Winchester acts surprised when Abigail doesn’t show shock at the revelation that there are demons in the world.  
  
“I’ve known monsters,” she says. Sam raises his eyebrows but doesn’t ask—he’s busy. She’s glad, because she doesn’t have an explanation that doesn’t involve too much truth. The words left her mouth before she’d thought them through.  
  
To be fair, things have been moving pretty fast: she’d been roaming a desert town, and then she’d been tied up in a filthy warehouse, and then she’d woken up to a tall man with dead eyes cutting through her ropes. By now she knows better than to put faith in her rescuers. When he asks for her name her answer is short, but his attention is shorter: he’s here to free her, nothing more or less. He has no interest in her identity, and she knows she should stop assuming everyone knows who she is from the scar on her neck. It’s pretty obvious the demon didn’t know who she was. Sam Winchester cares even less than the demon; he’s just freeing another victim, urging them to run, get away. He spends far too much time looking into her eyes, and not enough looking over his shoulder. Lucky for him, Abigail has little use for a savior. The shoe she throws (her only projectile) distracts everyone enough for Sam to stand and whirl in the direction of the demon.  
  
It’s not enough. The fight’s not going well for the humans, and Sam is pinned against the wall by the demon, who holds out its hand like it's directing an orchestra. With her hands and legs free, though, Abigail can grab the shotgun that’d skittered from Sam Winchester’s grasp as he was thrown against the wall. The weight is familiar; she feels a thrill as she pulls the trigger. Abigail’s so eager she misses how Sam’s hand had clenched into a fist, how his whole body had been ready for death. She shoots the demon in the chest, which is enough pain to distract it while Sam breathlessly recites some Latin. Abigail approaches while he does, pointing the gun at the back of the demon’s head. When Sam’s done and the black smoke has torn itself from the body, Abigail finally lowers the gun and hands it to Sam. The mild surprise makes him look a decade younger.  
  
“Thanks.”  
  
“No problem.”  
  
“No, seriously.” Sam frowns as he gently takes the shotgun from her grasp. She watches his face; the twitch of his lips gives away his hesitation. “That was great. Thanks.”  
  
“You said that.”  
  
“Uh. Yeah. Listen…” He’s going to say something else. All her instincts light up: this is important. This is a revelation, the kind that indebts—a secret that…  
  
Before Sam can say anything, there’s a noise like the ruffling of pages through an ancient book. A woman: gorgeous, brown hair, curves wanting to be stroked, eyes like Hannibal. Abigail instantly hates her.  
  
“Hey,” the woman speaks to Sam, ignoring Abigail like she doesn’t exist. “We need to get out of here.”  
  
Sam turns to the woman like she’s his anchor. Abigail’s seen that look. It was the lost, sinking-man plea Will used to voice to Hannibal, when she’d spied on them during their sessions. It was the rope Will threw out, caught by the man who swore he was the only one who could understand. And look how that turned out. It’s the same here. Abigail knows it as surely as she knew who Hannibal was, the same day she heard his voice and matched it instantly. She’d always known. It’s what to _do_ with that knowledge: how to act, knowing the evil of the world… it’s always been the question of how best to stay alive, she'd thought, until she’d met Will. Then she’d seen what a lifetime of mere survival would buy her. It really wasn’t any better than those women at group session, obsessing over their trauma, a shadow of real life. And what was Sam Winchester doing with _his_ trauma? More importantly: what was this demon Ruby, with her smile like Jack Crawford and her eyes like Hannibal, doing with Sam?  
  
Abigail doesn’t know the history between the dusty cowboy with his sawed-off and the femme fatale with her cutting smile. She doesn't need to. She looks from man to woman, trying to see some way in. None comes to mind. So she improvises: “Let me come with.”  
  
They both scoff. Understandable. And they leave her—predictable.  
  
So she tracks them.  
  
Abigail might not have the money, or the reputation, or the arsenal. But she has the instinct and the patience. It’s easy, once you have the scent. She’d wait a lifetime, behind the trees. Invisible. Waiting for the breath's length it takes to pull the trigger.  


 

 

 

 

> [**oo4**](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92HjH1GG3ro) when I look over my shoulder, what do you think I see?  
>  some other cat lookin’ over his shoulder at me  
>  and he’s strange, sure is strange…  
> 
> 
> ( **season of the witch** _donovan_ )  
>   
> ---  
  
  
  
Abigail learns how to kill a demon.  
  
She practices.  
  
She might earn a reputation, in the southwest. She’s eminently aware of the rumors, but she doesn’t encourage it like she could (she isn’t concerned with _legacy_ ).  
  
Latin isn’t hard. Tracking Sam Winchester isn’t hard either. He doesn’t hide his tracks; he doesn’t care if he’s found. He nearly broadcasts his location, and Abigail watches him kill every demon who approaches. It’s one kind of strategy, anyway. Not the kind she’d choose, but she doesn’t have any say. Not yet.  
  
She watches Sam Winchester’s motel room, but not for him. She waits for the demon Ruby, because it’s only a matter of time. They’re fucking, which is one thing; but Sam’s following her advice, which is another. Abigail knows the difference, because she knows Alana fucked Will, but Will followed Hannibal’s advice. Abigail's twenty now; the arithmetic is pretty clear.  
  
Abigail waits until Ruby leaves Sam's room, and follows. She follows for days, weeks. She records meetings on her phone, and writes notes, and remembers. The strategy starts to present itself, the more Abigail hears. It’s a glorious game Ruby’s playing. Hannibal would be proud. The endgame is exactly the kind of thing he’d love: destruction by sacrifice.  
  
Abigail could try to kill Ruby. She wants to. It’d be like killing Hannibal himself: Tearing the mask off, exposing and identifying and killing the mystery. Knowing the enemy—something as simple and satisfying as that. But she knows she’d fail. More than that: Sam has to do it. She’s followed them for so long now. Sam lost his brother, replaced him with this demon. He has to be the one. He has to face his failure.  
  
So Abigail breaks into his room, an innocuous Tuesday night. The evidence is all spread out on the unoccupied bed when he wakes up. Sam Winchester blusters and rationalizes, but that’s the loneliness.  
  
She’s prepared for that too.  
  
In the end, he can't kill Ruby. Sam Winchester has more compassion than anyone expected or desired. Abigail counts it as a win that at least there's nothing Ruby could say anymore that Sam would trust. Loyalty is the Winchester currency, and Abigail's finally convinced Sam of Ruby's empty hand. When they leave her crying out from a devil's trap, Abigail pretends not to see his tears. She knows what it means, to leave the last connection he had to his brother. The last hope he had of making that sacrifice mean something.  
  
Silently, Abigail takes the keys from his trembling hands. He plays the same Led Zeppelin tape over and over. After an hour she swerves, pulling over to the side of the road, and cries against the wheel, shedding the tears he can't.

Neither of them says a word.  
  


 

 

 

 

> [**oo5**](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfFuKGkG4LI) she still remembers, but won’t tell  
>  ‘cuz she’s a mixed up girl in a mixed up world, you know she don’t mean any harm.  
>  So please understand if you take her hand, you’ll get much more than you bargained for.  
>  Don’t meddle with a heart, meddle with a mind, meddle with the things that are inside;  
>  you don’t know you’ll find, you don’t know what she hides.  
> 
> 
> ( **meddle (tenorion piano version)** _little boots_ )  
>   
> ---  
  
  
  
Sam asks all the wrong questions.  
  
“What, weird taste?” he asks, brows drawn together as she pushes her plate away. Abigail had found a vein in the meat of her chicken breast, and the flashback had been vivid: a burst balloon of blood on her tongue.  
  
Hannibal would have looked down and drawn the connection instantly. Will would have been half a step behind, only lagging because of the time he always wasted on concern. Even Alana would have found the ballpark: Why isn’t she eating? What has she remembered? How does the memory make her feel? How often does she recall the taste of blood? ( _Did you enjoy it, Abigail?_ )  
  
Distrustful, Abigail nods slowly. “Kind of.”  
  
He stares at the plate. ‘ _Here it comes_ ,’ she thinks, steeling herself. But when he speaks, it’s not to demand a better answer.  
  
“How weird?” He looks sheepish underneath his growing bangs. “Food poisoning weird?”  
  
Abigail doesn’t know whether she feels relieved or frustrated.  
  
“Not too weird,” she replies. “I guess I just get full quickly.” She frames the lie with a smile to make it convincing. Before he can ask permission, she pushes the plate further towards him. Sam grins gratefully.  
  
“Man, Dean would’ve loved that,” Sam muses as he picks up his knife and fork. Abigail watches as he cuts right through the vein.  
  
\- - -  
  
They travel together. Every day, they spend at least 8 hours researching, and their only relief is when they confront the thing they’ve been hunting. It feels like being a perpetual student with a demandingly murderous side-job.  
  
Sam never wavers—that’s what he’d like to pretend. Abigail can hear it: _I want to be like my big brother._ He tries to look to her, once or twice; she cuts that off right away. She’s no Ruby, no Hannibal. She doesn’t want to steer this ship, but she doesn’t think Sam should either. They’re rudderless.  
  
Maybe that’s okay. So long as they kill evil sons of bitches, occasionally. So long as Sam doesn’t peer too close. Abigail doesn’t know what’ll happen when he does. What’s his definition of monster? Would she fit comfortably into that mold?  
  
He’d never looked too closely at Ruby’s veneer. It would’ve cracked under scrutiny. In some ways, Abigail longs for it. She wants what Ruby feared. She hides out of instinct, but if Sam looked…  
  
She wonders if he'd like what he found.  
  


 

 

 

> [**oo6**](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2zFQXZxuTs) it's the night, i can be who you like, and i'll quietly leave before it gets light.  
>  so twist and whisper the wrong name; i don't care, and nor do my ears. i need company, i need human heat.  
>  twist and whisper the right name: i'm david, please.  
>  the twist is that you’re just like me: you need company, you need human heat.  
> 
> 
> ( **the twist** _frightened rabbit_ )  
>   
> ---  
  
  
  
There’s a death echo rattling through Sam. He doesn’t pretend otherwise. The conditions of their partnership hinge on her acceptance of his tunnel-vision goal to avenge Dean’s death. That’s fine; Abigail’s accepted worse terms before.  
  
There’s a difference, through, between what’s driving Sam and what lived inside her dad. Sam doesn’t like what he does; she can see him convincing himself this is what he _needs_ to do. It’s too much like Will, sometimes, for her comfort. Then Sam reminds her exactly how unlike Will Graham he is, when he kills a human witch without flinching and doesn’t apologize for it afterwards. When he throws her a gun full of salt rounds and warns her not to miss before they storm a haunted building. When he treats her like an _equal_ , like someone he doesn’t have to check on.  
  
He teaches her how to pull off credit card scams and successfully throw a pool game. Abigail has always been a quick study and thrives under the Hunter 101 syllabus: picking up Latin and Sumerian, memorizing the MOs of common monsters, learning how to drink liquor neat without flinching. She can tell Sam appreciates having someone around who cares whether the translation of a tablet should be in future or future perfect tense. They spend countless hours bent over cheap motel furniture, fingers not quite touching. Eyes never meeting. His long legs are difficult to avoid, underneath the table.  
  
There are moments. It happens when they’re in sync: moving seamlessly during a fight or playing off each other around a pool table. Abigail finds herself feeling euphoric, and she can see it in Sam too, crow’s feet narrowing his hazel eyes in silent humor. He never looks more beautiful than when he’s containing his laughter. Then it’s like he remembers himself: the warmth drains from him and he frowns, like that will erase the lingering effects of a smile he never let loose.  
  
It’s difficult to sympathize, in some ways. Abigail’s been the object of obsession, and obsessive tendencies usually draw bile. But from what she can gather, the obsession between the Winchester brothers was entirely mutual. Codependency is a word Hannibal had used to describe siblings before. Abigail hadn’t understood the depth of the word at the time. She hadn’t known, until she spent a month on the road with Sam Winchester, that it’d applied to Hannibal too. The things she’s learned since she’s left could fill a cookbook.  
  
Abigail compiles a mental list: Led Zeppelin, cheeseburgers, the sawed-off shotgun in the arsenal with DW carved into the wood, beer from the bottle, Star Wars, Star Trek, porn of any kind, (Asian women for some reason), any Asia song but especially “Heat of the Moment,” whiskey neat, Marlboro Reds, blackjack, Lord of the Rings references. It’s a long list. Getting longer by the day.  
  
The thin motel sheets never keep her warm; she wakes up during the middle of the night, shivering and frustrated. She’d give a lot for a good night’s sleep, considering their long days. Sam hasn’t slept through the night since she’s known him. Two months is a long time to be an insomniac. It's time she did something about that.  
  
Besides: she has a theory that if she gets Sam Winchester drunk enough, he’ll say his brother’s name when she fucks him.  
  
He isn’t ready when she crosses between their beds and covers his mouth, swallowing his protests. He can’t pretend he doesn’t want it, because they both feel his cock between them. Still, Abigail slows down, because she knows what it’s like to be overwhelmed; Sam’s kisses turn grateful, a trail of gentle willingness against her neck. They’re seconds from honesty. The confessions are there in their hips. The hesitance is all a show. Necessary, but ultimately they want the precipice, the tumble off the cliff that means they no longer have to pretend. Sam never had this with Ruby, never trusted himself to be so flayed. Abigail kisses his sadness away, the corners of his eyes, his temple, down his jaw. She is so small underneath him, but she's a surrounding force: that's what he needs, bite for bite.  
  
It’s a messy terrible fight of teeth and limbs. Sam has always been cautious, but Abigail has anger to match, and every roll of her hips is a warning: don't you _dare_ hold back. He grinds down and her nails dig into his back, pulling him close; his cock is painful against her jutting hip, but she wants to feel how much he wants this—not _her_ , maybe, but _this_. She wants a compromise between fast and lingering, so she opens her legs and wraps a guiding hand around the base of his cock. She’s been wet enough for an hour, and she finally says his name in his ear:  
  
“Sam.”  
  
He moans. He sounds broken. She pushes herself against him and he thrusts shallowly into her, waiting until she adjusts. His head falls down onto the pillow next to her, his arms bracketing her ribs and his lips so very close to her ear as she finally loosens enough to properly fuck down onto him.  
  
“D—Abi—God, god…" she smirks up at the ceiling as she breathes, muscles relaxing and allowing him to sink deeper, "fuck… fuck, De…”  
  
She closes her eyes. It's almost like being a virgin. The thought makes her groan, loud and uninhibited, filling the room with filth.  
  
" _Fuck_ ," she echoes. Underneath him, at their most vulnerable, it’s obvious what he needs. Abigail is a hunter. She knows how to mask her scent. " _Sam_."  
  
The roll of her hips changes. Becomes more natural. This is no longer a favor. Sam will never understand what changes, why it goes from a good, cathartic fuck to something… untied. Chaotic. One minute they’re fucking, enjoyable and everything, but just kind of something he knows Dean thinks he should do. The next, he’s _aware_ : there’s an animal under him and he’s just as feral, wanting to devour. Abigail wraps her legs around his back, crossing her ankles and digging her shins into his back, encouraging the pace. When he looks down at her, she’s sneering—he can hear the voice in his head: c’mon sammy, c’mon, what’re you, _scared_?  
  
Her mouth is the perfect smile, that knowing grin he’s always wanted to kiss away since forever, back when it’d lingered on a different mouth. Abigail doesn’t give him the luxury of hiding: she breathes and slides and makes herself feel so good around him, wet and open and fucking him until he's fisting the sheets, sliding in and out with an insane rhythm. Too good to last long, and she knows it; she’s had practice. She mouths at his neck and asks for his secret.  
  
“Say it, Sammy. Say it. Say it, say it, please.”  
  
And he does, he _does_.  
  
Abigail swallows the name, and it tastes like salt.  
  


 

 

 

> [**oo7**](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmuswTEGF-U) now we’re there, and we’ve only just begun  
>  this will be our year; took a long time to come.  
> 
> 
> ( **this will be our year** _the zombies_ )  
>   
> ---  
  
  
  
It’s nothing as comfortable as a routine.  
  
Sam is inaccessible at the best of times. His brother’s dead, he’s slightly addicted to demon blood, and he thinks he’s a one-man-army in the war against demons.  
  
Abigail is an impenetrable mystery, a former cannibal who still craves human flesh on occasion. Her only family is in a maximum-security prison.  
  
Dean is in hell. There’s nothing they can do about it. But it doesn’t feel hopeless anymore, because they have a plan. Lilith is going to tell them everything. Abigail’s looking forward to it, looking forward to finally being able to repay Sam for everything he’s done for her.  
  
Odd, how hopeful she feels. She really doesn’t trust it. But hunting is in her blood, as surely as it’s in Sam Winchester’s.  
  
The sun’s just rising over the trees as Sam unlocks the doors to the impala. They need an early start if they’re going to make it to Maine by tomorrow. She meets his eyes over the roof—  
  
And they’ve only just begun.

 

 

  
  
bonus track:

 

 

> [**oo8**](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whOzpR2LSek) if something in the deli aisle makes you cry, of course i'll put my arm around you and walk you outside through the sliding doors  
>  why would i mind?  
>  and when you're holding me, we make a pair of parentheses;  
>  there's plenty of space to encase whatever weird way my mind goes, i know i'll be safe in these arms.  
>   
> 
> 
> ( **parentheses** _the blow_ )  
>   
> ---  
  
  
The good days are when they get to kill something.  
  
The bad days make up the majority.  
  
She's not walking into a fairy tale. In practical terms, it's no better than the life she left in Minnesota or Baltimore. The body count is actually worse. Sam is broken and unreachable and the would-be boy king of Hell. When the wind moves too roughly through the trees, she worries he might be losing his temper.  
  
But the worst part is that no one's ever offered Sam a shoulder to cry on before. It's a rudimentary psychological move, and Abigail hadn't expected it to be so effective. She'd underestimated how many roles Dean played in Sam's life.  
  
The worst days are when Sam can't hold it in anymore. The strangest things will tip him over the edge (Abigail makes a list, longer every day) and she can never predict it. His spine will straighten and she'll _feel_ his tears. A sliver of her wants to say it's pathetic, but that's the part cultured by broken people like Ruth. The rest of her responds appropriately: Sam is incomplete without his brother and cannot cope in a world without him. The least she can do is settle her hand on the small of his back and lead him back to the impala. In the sanctity of the car, Sam can gasp through his sobbing, gripping his thighs or sometimes the wheel. All Abigail can do is turn away and pretend she's not bearing witness to this outpouring of grief. They try to pretend like these moments never happen.  
  
But they do. And it changes things.  
  
(It makes her try harder to win Dean's name from Sam's lips.)  
  
(It makes Sam watch Abigail with wary eyes, the kind of skepticism he's always reserved for Dean.)  
  
(And they get in the car, closer and closer. It's only a matter of time.)


End file.
